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Benghazi

Six years later, we know that President Obama’s pledge to run the most transparent administration in history was merely a campaign promise, a White House talking point, and not a statement of management style. We’ve seen a series of highly public scandals—Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS, NSA, and now, the VA—where Oversight Committees have fought to pry information out of the Obama White House only to receive stacks of redacted documents.

Most recently, we’ve seen court-ordered information provided to nonprofit government watchdog groups in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests that have made it very clear why the Administration wanted to keep specific contents hidden. Emails that revealed direct White House involvement in the Benghazi scandal are behind the creation of the new Select Committee. IRS documents show the Tea Party targeting wasn’t a couple of rogue agents in Cincinnati, as the Obama administration claimed—instead, now we know it was orchestrated out of DC. Briefing materials point out that the Obama administration has known about problems with VA hospital wait times since 2009.

FOIA requests must be the bane of the “most transparent administration in history.”

As shameful as each of these scandals are, they directly impact only a comparative handful of people. We grieve the loss of life, but unless you are a family member or friend of the four brave men killed in Benghazi or of the dozens of veterans who risked their lives for our country only to die unnecessarily due to bad policy at the VA hospitals, your life goes on without consequence.

However, there are other cases that haven’t yet reached “scandal” status (and they may never because it is unlikely that anyone will die) where the Administration doesn’t want the public to know the rationale behind the policy that is universally having a negative impact on all Americans. These stories point to the administrations’ use of bad science to achieve its goal of growing government and controlling people through the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and Clean Air Act. Together the practices restrict access to public and private lands for farming, ranching, and energy development, and reduce the availability of affordable electricity—making essential food and power costs ever-increasing.

In New Mexico, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Forest Service are preventing cattle ranchers from accessing water to which two different court rulings have declared the ranchers’ have rights. According to a report in the Daily Caller: “New Mexico’s current conflict involves 23 acres along the Aqua Chiquita creek and natural springs, now fenced off for the benefit of the newly protected meadow jumping mouse. Cattle ranchers had naturally relied on access to this water since the area had been open to grazing permittees since 1957.”

Addressing the specific protections for the mouse, the report points out the “decades of scientific controversy over whether the meadow jumping mouse was a ‘valid subspecies’ or whether it really was vanishing.” It also cites current research from the University of New Mexico with recommendations that would lead to a re-evaluation of the listing.

The report states: “Yet scrutiny of EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] determinations and analysis of competing findings is foreclosed by sweetheart deals between environmental advocacy groups and the EPA in ‘sue and settle’ schemes.” It continues: “This collaboration between two friendly parties to co-opt the courts into bypassing constitutionally prescribed safeguards and protections denies local governments, harmed parties, and the public in general a seat at the table.”

While the Daily Caller piece doesn’t specifically reference the Information Quality Act (IQA), enacted by Congress in 2000, it is one of the safeguards and protections required for “influential scientific information” and/or “highly influential scientific assessments”—particularly if such scientific information may be used as the basis for regulatory action. The IQA requires “all federal bureaucrats to ‘prove up’ their claims and data so others in local government and land-use managers could rely on it to make wise and proper management decisions,” explains Dan Byfield, CEO of American Stewards of Liberty.

In a Ranch Magazine article titled “Verify the science,” Byfield showed how the IQA can be used to prevent environmental organizations from “manipulating our government and federal statutes to their benefit and the detriment of everyone else.” He worked successfully with eight counties in the Permian Basin to stop the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from listing the dunes sagebrush lizard as endangered. He states: “We prevented the listing and saved those two million acres by taking a hard look at the science. What we discovered became the ‘smoking gun!’” Byfield continues: “what we found was anything but credible science. …and this is true with almost every proposed listing.”

Taking the IQA a step further, earlier this year the Institute for Trade Standards and Sustainable Development (ITSSD) filed FOIA requests regarding the science underpinning the EPA’s 2009 greenhouse gas endangerment findings—identifying six greenhouse gasses as posing a risk of endangerment to public health and welfare within the meaning of the Clean Air Act. The requests were filed with the EPA and the U.S. government’s lead climate science agency: the Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

An ITSSD press release states: “The objective of the FOIA requests has been to secure disclosure of government records substantiating each agency’s compliance with the provisions of the U.S. Information Quality Act.” ITSSD asserts that, based on its research, the required “peer review science process has likely been compromised on conflict of interest, independence/bias, peer review panel balance, and transparency grounds.” Additionally, the ITSSD press release claims that peer review comments regarding scientific uncertainties were ignored.

ITSSD believes that The EPA’s endangerment ruling—which has triggered costly and burdensome greenhouse gas emissions control regulations and proposed performance standards that would restrict new fossil fuel-based energy generation facilities—is based on bad science and is seeking records regarding the climate science-related peer review processes.

Requests for information are being stonewalled, in part, by denying the customary fee waiver requests generally allowed for nonprofit organizations engaged in public education. (ITSSD is a 501(c)(3) organization with the mission of educating the public about the legal and economic consequences of environmental health and safety rules premised on the post-modern concept of sustainable development.)

In a Politico story on “President Obama’s muddy transparency record,” Katherine Meyer, a Washington lawyer who’s been filing FOIA cases since 1978, is quoted as saying: “Obama is the sixth administration that’s been in office since I’ve been doing Freedom of Information Act work. … It’s kind of shocking to me to say this, but of the six, this administration is the worst on FOIA issues. The worst. There’s just no question about it. This administration is raising one barrier after another. … It’s gotten to the point where I’m stunned—I’m really stunned.”

With knowledge of the way the most transparent administration in history operates, one can reasonably conclude that ITSSD’s FOIA requests are being slow walked because it has hit upon an area of vulnerability that the administration would rather keep hidden. The requested documents would likely require a reexamination of the EPA’s greenhouse gas endangerment findings that would render them invalid.

The closer one looks, the more clear it becomes. The only thing transparent about the Obama administration is its motives for hiding the truth. If everything it is covering up was exposed, myriad policies, mandates, and regulations would have to be reversed and the American people would be relieved.

Laws like the IQA were put into place to protect the public from a president who thinks he can rule by decree—with a pen and phone—rather than on sound science.

The author of Energy Freedom, Marita Noon serves as the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc. and the companion educational organization, the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE). Together they work to educate the public and influence policy makers regarding energy, its role in freedom, and the American way of life. Combining energy, news, politics, and, the environment through public events, speaking engagements, and media, the organizations’ combined efforts serve as America’s voice for energy.

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Some of America’s citizens will say it is very much past time to tie Obama’s errant ways in knots before he has time to completely ruin this county through illegal means. You can follow most of what he has done in the way of shady evasions of custom and laws by perusing the article below.

GOP Begins To Fight Back Against Obama’s Broad Executive Overreach

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Has President Obama’s impunity come to an end?

After five years of his flouting the letter and spirit of the law in an increasingly brazen fashion, congressional Republicans have been starting to ramp up their rhetoric about Obama’s lawlessness, their most concerted effort on the issue to date.

Several new reports from top Republicans underscore the breadth of Obama’s executive overreach. Viewed comprehensively, it involves laws ranging from healthcare to immigration to privacy to technology to social issues to national security matters and more. Scandals like Benghazi, Operation Fast and Furious, the IRS targeting of conservative groups, NSA spying, CIA spying on Congress, the Delphi pensions scandal, the auto bailout and others have many unresolved questions – and unmet document and information demands.

Last week, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor re-released his 33-page October 2012 report detailing 40 separate examples of “the break-down in the rule of law under the Obama Administration.” This time, Cantor added a nine-page addendum with scores more examples of lawlessness of the administration.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has also issued a three-part series of reports on the matter called “The Legal Limit,” which totals 26 pages of examples of Obama’s lawlessness, legal analysis and details of how courts have rejected the Department of Justice (DOJ) explanations from Attorney General Eric Holder for the Obama power grabs. In his first report, for instance, Cruz details nine cases the DOJ lost in which the Obama administration was seeking—but ultimately failed to achieve—more power.

“If the Department of Justice had won these cases, the federal government would be able to electronically track all of our movements, fine us without a fair hearing, dictate who churches choose as ministers, displace state laws based on the President’s whims, bring debilitating lawsuits against individuals based on events that occurred years ago, and destroy a person’s private property without just compensation,” Cruz wrote about them.

A major focus of Cantor’s report is on the administration’s rewriting of Obamacare. With regard to the president’s signature legislation, Cantor writes that the administration “has engaged in a series of ad-hoc announcements that ignore statutory deadlines, waive unwaivable provisions of the law, and even create benefits not authorized in law.”

In 2013 and 2014 alone, Cantor’s report addendum lists 18 examples in which the administration has violated Obamacare as written and passed by Congress.

Obamacare is hardly the only law, however, with which the Obama administration is testing its executive powers. Another area of public policy the administration has heavily leaned on executive authority is with regard to immigration policy.

In Cantor’s original 2012 report, he cited one of the clearest examples of Obama’s executive power grab on immigration: when the president in summer 2012, in a Rose Garden speech alongside then Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, used executive authority to create the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program which granted executive amnesty to illegal aliens who say they were minors when they entered the country. Cantor also cited the so-called “Morton memos,” that were written in 2011 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director John Morton and established the administration’s use of “prosecutorial discretion” to allow illegal aliens to remain in the United States.

“While the use of prosecutorial discretion is not new, there is a significant difference between its previous narrow application and the establishment of a formal process to systematically, on an ongoing basis, block illegal aliens from being placed into removal proceedings, stop already-initiated removal proceedings, and end deportations for potentially large numbers of criminal aliens,” Cantor wrote about the Morton memos.

On Thursday, all but two Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee walked out before the parents of two of the victims killed in the Benghazi attacks testified.

Patricia Smith, the mother of Sean Smith, and Charles Woods, the father of Ty Woods, spoke after the committee questioned the heads of the Benghazi Accountability Review Board (ARB) and the Independent Panel of Best Practices.

But among Democrats, only Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the ranking member on the committee, and Jackie Speier (D-CA) stayed to hear Woods and Smith.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the chair of the committee, tweeted a picture of the empty seats:Here is the link to the complete story

As it turns out, according to a report from Katy Pavlich, some of the republicans assigned to the committee were themselves absent: ” UPDATE: It turns out there weren’t a whole lot of Republicans in the hearing room for Smith and Wood’s testimony either. They should have been there.” TownHall Magazine

The above being said, the New Mexico Representative is reported to have been Michelle Lujan Grisham. If you wish to inquire as to whether the report of her absence is true, and/or find out what she has to say about her actions listed below, are some contact methods for her:

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The Obama administration has not, and apparently will not, coöperate with members of congress in getting to the bottom of the cesspool commonly known as Fast and Furious. Additionally, members of congress seem content with letting the Benghaziinvestigation lie fallow, instead of harvesting the facts to punish those complicit in the murder of Americans in the pigsty formerly known as Libya.

Townhall magazine has published current information on more of the results of what Fast andFurious weapons have managed to mangle or murder.

The following from Townhall magazine was written by Katie Pavlich:

“A month ago, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder asking why the Department of Justice was covering up deaths and weapons linked to Operation Fast and Furious. The inquiry came shortly after a Mexican police chief and his body-guard were killed by cartel members using Fast and Furious guns. “Since the beginning of this investigation, we have followed the link between Fast and Furious weapons and crimes committed on both sides of the border. On numerous occasions we have asked the Department to keep us apprised of Fast and Furious weapon recoveries — especially as they relate to violent crimes,” Grassley wrote. “Despite our repeated requests, it has been over a year since we last heard from the Department on this issue. The Department his from Congress this recent internal trace record showing a link between the murder of a police chief and Fast and Furious. Such actions do little to promote trust between the Department and Congress, and only provide further evidence that the Department is actively trying to conceal all information pertaining to Fast and Furious from Congress.”

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As she testified regarding Benghazi and hurled the now famous question/statement:

“With all due respect, the fact is, we had four dead Americans! Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they’d go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? …”

Her concern was not for the dead patriots whom gave their all for this country after they had the rug pulled from under them. No, her concern was self-concern as she surely thought her coming run for president would be greatly diminished if the truth should be forthcoming.

If she shed tears for the lost heroes it was not apparent; nor was it mentioned in the mainscream media. According to some reports she apologized for the state department’s sorry system of dealing with life-threatening episode; however, apologies do not comport with actually taking responsibility for one’s short-comings or lack of effective action.

Yesterday,she found herself following in Eric Holder‘s sorry footsteps. As did Holder, she stood before the Delta Sigma Theta Soroity (touted as the largest black women’s organization in the world) and expressed her real or unreal sentiments concerning the death of Trayvon Martin and the jury’s verdict of not guilty in the trial of George Zimmerman. See the beginning of the Breitbart article just below and then following the link to the rest of the post.

Hillary Addresses Zimmerman Verdict ‘Heartache’

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reacted to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for shooting Trayvon Martin in self-defense while speaking Tuesday evening to Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, the largest African-American women’s organization in the country.

“My prayers are with the Martin family and with every family who loves someone who is lost to violence,” Clinton said. “No mother, no father, should ever have to fear for their child walking down a street in the United States of America.”

She added that the not guilty verdict for Zimmerman “brought heartache, deep painful heartache” to families.

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Bob Steiner is a retired U.S. Army Vietnam Veteran who has won awards for his poetry, some of which was previously published here. Read here:TRIBUTE

by Bob Steiner

Well it looks like Mr. Obama has had another interesting week or two. He had been planning a series of trips to Africa and Europe for some time. These were going to cost a lot of money because of the number of people who would accompany him, as well as the duration of the travel. He was irritated by the news pundits complaining about the cost of his venture. On the other hand, he had been working hard and deserved a vacation. Who really cared if he spent a few million dollars that our Chinese friends had provided?

Then it dawned on him. Under the “Sequester,” guidelines that he and congress had imposed to help reduce budgetary expenses, he could impose some mandatory holidays on federal workers and this would help free up some travel funds. He could also cancel the fireworks shows that were traditionally held at mostmilitary installations to celebrate the nation’s national holiday on July 4. This would really help! Those military guys just spend too much money with their ceremonies.

Well his trip did get off the ground. Starting off at the G8 economic summit with several of our “allies”, some progress was made on international monetary procedures, but the president really had another topic he wanted to push. This was the conflict in Syria.

The war there had been going on for more than a year. More than 80,000 Syrians had been killed and many more had fled the country. Despite the urging of some of our country’s political leaders to help bring the fighting to an end, Mr. Obama seemed to want to do nothing. Then, as the G8 meeting was preparing to close, he gave a speech advocating that those present should now pursue a more aggressive policy against that country. Several of those present, led by Vladimir Putin, seemed to resent his somewhat “late-arriving,” advice, and the conference closed with no real action being taken against Syria. At their final news conference, Mr. Putin really made him sound inept. I guess that K.G.B. training he had had, really paid off. Our President proved to be a real embarrassment, in the eyes of many. Then he was off to Africa.

As he arrived in South Africa, Nelson Mandela, the Country’s National Hero, was hospitalized for a serious life-threatening infection. While he never actually visited Mr. Mandela while in South Africa, he chose to remind the press that he was there and may have gained some stature with Africans.

English: Young Nelson Mandela. This photo dates from 1937. South Africa protect the copyright of photographs for 50 years from their first publication. See . Since this image would have been PD in South Africa in 1996, when the URAA took effect, this image is PD in the U.S. Image source: http://www.anc.org.za/people/mandela/index.html (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In addition to all of the above, we should not lose sight of all the “faux pas” associated with “Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the choice of which leader to support in Egypt, the Internal Revenue Service, and Snowden-N.S.A. classified document problem”. All of the above had one thing in common. Mr. Obama disclosed too much information to the press.

Perhaps his worst mistake in this area was when he went to great trouble to endorse P.M. Morsi who wasalso the leader of the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood and has since been deposed by the Egyptian Army. Who does he endorse once the new P.M. is selected? In the meantime the U.S. has become the laughing stock of the diplomatic world!

SUGGESTION TO THE PRESIDENT:

Unfortunately, you seem to want to use deception (look at all the “mis-information” that you allowed to come out about Benghasi.) to help you in your duties. Even if you can find a teleprinter that works well, do not make any endorsements that you do not have to! If you must, avoid all comments on foreign affairs. If you have to, mislead the press, make verbal deals in private that you won’t be held accountable for. The British, French, and the Germans seem to have been reasonably successful doing this for years.

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The following information was sent to us by High Plains Patriots. We appreciate receiving it and we post it without comment. If you have trouble reading the timeline try a left click or clicks to enlarge the document. Please read the report at the pdf link found after Timeline and any related articles which are linked below:

Here are the comments from Carolyn Spence of High Plains Patriots:

It is a very sad, sad thing to read the House report on Benghazi. This is the report of an ongoing Congressional investigation across five House Committees concerning the events surrounding the September 11, 2012, terrorist attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya.

The consolidated timeline begins on page 39. It’s hard to read without tears and will make those who love America sad. Sad because of the losses. Even sadder at the very plain evidence that the losses were a waste and did not have to happen. And grief stricken for the loss of our national identity as ones who protect our own, and save our own, even at the risk of our own welfare. That is not the case with those who have taken over our nation. Read the report and weep and then rise up to work to see this wrong made right.

Click on the link below which will take you to a link page with a link to the report.

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There is nothing; absolutely nothing, more despicable than individuals attempting to claim transparency and truth when their records show they are as slick as an octopus escape artist .

Obama-Biden Transition (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Whether the deception deals with Fast and Furious, Benghazi or improper IRS targeting they can’t hide all of the lies by themselves. They have to have a willing and compliant cache of media types to aid their escape from responsibility. Since most of the media deceivers are well-practiced Obama, Holder and Hillary just happen to have their cadres of media allies.

Here is a new article from FrontPageMag.com. Just click the link below: